


turn around and say good morning to the night

by monstermash



Series: memento mori (remember, you will die) [1]
Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: M/M, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-20 16:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14265552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monstermash/pseuds/monstermash
Summary: If anyone had told Garrett Rook that he’d end up riding out the end of the world in a bunker in rural Montana with only a Doomsday cult leader for company, he’d have outright laughed in their face.





	1. lay me down in sheets of linen

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Dancing in Limbo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14239371) by [Magpiedance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magpiedance/pseuds/Magpiedance). 



> basically i woke up ridiculously early this morning after having read [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14239371) the other night and i had a mighty need to write this so i'd say a good portion of this story is based off that one which y'all should read it's really good.
> 
> okay im gonna go get some more rest, don't mind any mistakes i'll edit later (probably)
> 
> also if anyone seems ooc i blame the fact that i haven't actually played the game yet and i've only seen bits and pieces of it from youtube videos and from what i've read on the wiki

If anyone had told Garrett Rook that he’d end up riding out the end of the world in a bunker in rural Montana with only a Doomsday cult leader for company, he’d have outright laughed in their face.

But of course, with his recent streak of luck ever since they touched down in the religious compound with the Marshal, that is exactly what happened.

Everything he went through, from surviving the helicopter crash to enduring drug-fueled bouts of murder, seemed like something straight out of a Hollywood movie or a damn video game.

\---

After Jospeh cut his bindings, let him wander freely around the bunker, Garrett never really strayed from the main rooms; he’d seen this place before, when Dutch showed him around all those months ago, and he just… Garrett couldn’t really bear to go looking around.

This isn’t his home, it was Dutch’s, and now Garrett lives in it with the man who killed his friend.

He remembers waking up briefly when the crazed religious man dragged him here from the crash and seeing Dutch, lifeless and limp on the concrete.

Garrett wonders from time to time what happened to his friend’s body, but he can never seem to bring himself to ask, afraid of what the answer might be.

So the grief and guilt continue to pile on his shoulders; maybe if he’d been more conscious at the time then Dutch could still be alive, or if he had been paying more attention to the road instead of getting distracted by Pratt.

Garrett should’ve died in that crash.

He should’ve died in that car with the Sheriff and Pratt and Hudson.

He should be out there in the ash, his body burning with theirs.

Which is why one night, he finds himself tying a noose and then kicking a chair away, the guilt of surviving his friends and family finally winning the fight.

But then he finds himself on the cold floor and cradled in shaking arms when the black spots in his vision clear and he sees Joseph Seed crying, making Garrett think he’s hallucinating or something, because this clearly unhinged man didn’t shed a tear when his siblings were killed, but here he is crying over Garrett.

After that Joseph rarely let him out of his sight, following him around like a talkative and unbalanced shadow.

Garrett also took to wandering through more of the bunker instead of the two to three rooms he’d been keeping to before.

Which is why he’d been surprised when he came across a spare room that had been previously filled with odds and ends and finds it filled with a record player and old records, books that Garrett had mentioned off-hand a few times, and a few instruments. 

But most importantly there was a piano.

(None of this stuff had been here the last time he saw this room, and he’s touched that Dutch decided to include stuff that Garrett liked in his bunker. Garrett had never bought into any of the survivalist prepping stuff, but he’s honored nonetheless that his friend had thought to include him anyway.)

He looks at it with subdued awe, ignoring the way the other man watches him as he goes over to the musical instrument immediately.

Garrett carefully pushes back the fall board, something almost reverential in the way he does it, and plays a few keys, checking to see if it’s in tune; it is.

“Dutch, you thoughtful bastard,” Garrett whispers while choking back tears as he sits down on the bench and begins to play, something he hasn’t done since before this whole awful mess. He plays one of his [favorites](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsuHAn54wPs), singing along quietly at first, but getting into it the longer he goes on.

He’s missed this, being able to pour everything he has into playing music.

When the last note of the song trails off, he finally notices that at some point during the song Joseph came over and was now sitting next to him on the bench.

They sit in silence for a few moments and he thinks this is the longest he’s gone without hearing the other man speak.

“I used to teach music privately,” Garrett admits. He doesn’t elaborate further and Joseph thankfully keeps his mouth shut for once, doesn’t start talking nonsense about god or the bible or anything. Just lets Garrett turn back to the keys and play some more.

\---

Garrett contemplates killing Joseph for a while.

It would be easy; he could take one of the piano wires and use it during one of the times he gives in to the other man’s pestering and joins Joseph in his prayers.

He thinks about it a lot and he’d be lying through his teeth if he said he didn’t.

He thinks about it, but doesn’t act on it.

They’re all each other has down in this bunker, all each other has left in the world, and Garrett knows what isolation can do to a person. 

Besides, he’s not sure he has it in him anymore to kill anyone, no matter how deserving of it they might be. He has enough blood on his hands already.

And if he’s being completely honest, if he was going to kill Joseph Seed he would’ve done it as soon as his bindings had been cut.

\---

Some of the books Dutch put in the room with the music are unfilled leather bound journals.

Garrett’s taken to sketching out all the people he ever cared about on the blank pages and writing down their names and fond memories he has of them; he’s scared of forgetting them, forgetting what they look like.

He even draws the deceased Seed siblings and tries to at least write _something_ good about them. It’s a struggle but he does manage it. Of course he ends up handing the journal over to Joseph without a word, opened to the pages of the man’s siblings and hands him a pencil, lets him fill out the rest if he wants.

Garrett never knew what they were like before – before the cult, before he killed them – and he still thinks they were pretty damn terrible and he’s probably always going to hate them at least a little (including the surviving Seed), but he doesn’t think they deserve to be forgotten either.

Joseph is uncharacteristically quiet when he gives the journal back, hours later, and remains silent for the rest of the day.

Garrett doesn’t look at what the other man wrote, just puts it back on the shelf. Maybe someday he’ll be able to look at it, but he can’t bring himself to do so right now, not when the horror they inflicted on his friends is still fresh in his mind.

\---

He isn’t sure when the tone of whatever they are shifted from _“deranged cult leader and Sheriff’s Deputy who is riddled with survivors guilt stuck in a bunker together”_ to… well whatever it is they are now.

Sure they shared a bed more often than not, but that was mostly because Garrett was touch starved and the other man probably was too, what with how long they’ve both been down here. And yeah, there’s been quite a few times where he’s woken up with morning wood pressed against his ass, but he never brings it up. Usually just ignores it and goes back to sleep. And they don’t talk about how sometimes Garrett will curl into Joseph and Joseph will curl around him, they just don’t.

There’s a tension between them that Garrett hasn’t felt since he was in college, but they don’t talk about it, just dance around it.

So it comes as a surprise that it seems like a [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18lwca-xqh0) Garrett decided to play on the piano one day was the straw to break the camel’s back.

One second Garrett is playing the piano and the next he’s being turned around and then there are lips on his.

Joseph is kissing him and Garrett lets him.

\---

It’s 2010 – exactly 16 years since his wife died and he proved himself to God – and he and his brothers have come a long way from Georgia and the Lord Almighty has led them to Hope County, Montana.

Joseph and his brothers have bought a small piece of land, nothing much but all good things have humble beginnings.

The population of Hope County isn’t big and it’s spread thin, so the best place for them to get a feel for the people here is a dive bar called The Spread Eagle.

There’s quite a crowd when they arrive, and his brothers head in different directions into the crowd, ready to start looking for potential converts, while he himself goes to sit at the bar; he normally does not indulge, but doing so tonight is for the sake of blending in.

The seats at the bar are constantly emptying and refilling so it’s no surprise when a young man sits down next to him, though he strikes up a conversation with the bartender instead of Joseph. Which is fine by him, all he’s doing tonight is watching and listening, observing those around him who would be good additions to their tiny flock.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Garrett,” the bartender says to the young man. “Haven’t seen you around in a while. Where’ve you been?”

“College,” the young man – Garrett – answers. “How’s your family been, Fairgrave?”

Fairgrave hums.

“They’ve been doing good. Mary May’s been going through her rebellious phase. Billy should be around here somewhere, probably out back if you wanna steal the piano for a bit.”

Garrett nods at Fairgrave and then he’s gone.

Joseph goes back to watching the crowd through the mirror on the back of the bar.

Before too long Fairgrave looks up from the used beer glasses he had been cleaning at something further in the room and simply reaches up and behind himself to turn the radio off and suddenly the noisy bar falls silent.

Joseph turns around and sees Garrett, the young man from only a few minutes ago, sitting at the piano on the stage and there’s a man with a violin as well. He can hear Garrett count off a quiet “one, two, three…” and then they’re playing the opening notes of a [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18lwca-xqh0) and Joseph finds himself enraptured by it.

When Garrett begins to sing he becomes Joseph’s sole focus.

They launch into another song when the first one ends, and then into another, and another and another.

He gets so caught up in listening to that beautiful voice that he’s startled when the impromptu performance comes to a sudden end and the bar erupts into applause. When Fairgrave turns the radio back on the rest of the room goes back to how it had been before and he sees Garrett heading for the door.

 _“Perfect. Perfect,”_ is repeating on a loop in Joseph’s head as he gets up from his seat and pushes through the crowd towards the young man who has slipped out the door and into the night.

When Joseph finally makes it outside Garrett is gone, but his song has settled in Joseph’s mind alongside the words, _“Perfect, perfect.”_


	2. count the headlights on the highway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a side note, i have no idea what does or doesn't go in most doomsday prep bunkers. i'm pretty much just flying by the seat of my pants when it comes to writing this tbh.
> 
> i may or may not do a third chapter. depends on how i'm feeling about this chapter later lmao

Having been born and raised in Hope County, Garrett Rook knew first hand that despite the name and the beautiful scenery, the place was absolutely dismal.

Of course now it didn’t even have landscape to redeem itself.

The population of the county was sparse and spread out, less than 500 people in an area smaller than Silver Bow County. 

No public schools in the area, save for the small classroom off the old church that served as both elementary and middle school for the local children. When high school rolled around you had three options; get bused in to the nearest school in one of the surrounding counties, be home schooled, or stop after 8th grade and work at one of the many farms.

There was only one radio station and it only came in loud and clear during the night for some strange reason. That got fixed as the years went on, but during the 90’s and early 00’s it was still just faint static over the music at best during the day and nothing but electrical feedback at worst.

There was no library and the only bookstore was secondhand and right next to The Spread Eagle and doubled as an antique shop and corner store where everything was expired by at least two months. How it remained in business, Garrett had no idea since he never saw anyone else go in.

The point is, that were very few good things about Hope County, especially when he was growing up.

One of the few good things about Hope County had been William Fairgrave, Billy and Mary May’s father.

He had met the man when he was nine years old and sporting a black eye. The bartender had taken pity on Garrett and let him come by whenever he wanted and let him entertain himself with the piano on stage that hadn’t been touched in forever. Every now and then over the years he’d come in and find a new (secondhand, which was as good as new as you could get in Hope County) instrument waiting for him.

The guitar and trumpet were a couple of his favorites, but the piano would always be his first love.

Eventually, William had told him he could hold music lessons in the bar during the day since there weren’t that many customers during daylight hours anyway as way to save up money.

Garrett would always be thankful to the Fairgrave family, especially thankful to William, because the man had been nothing but kind to him, and as a kid, that was what Garrett had needed most.

\---

After a few more months have passed down in the bunker, Garrett knows that Joseph Seed is not a well man.

He knew that long ago, but now he has a better idea to what extent.

Most days the other man is fine – well, as fine as a religion obsessed, unhinged man who thinks God speaks to him can be – and talks about his nonsense (though sometimes Garrett can get him to talk about other things, even if only for a little while) and he’s calm.

Garrett likes to think that without the other Seed siblings around to feed off each other’s psychoses that Joseph is doing better. He’s not naïve enough to think that the other man will ever be cured from whatever mental illness he has, and Garrett is no therapist, but he does what he can to help try to even Joseph out. There’s only so much he can do for him without professional help and probably medication.

But just as there are good days, there are also bad days in which Joseph paces the hallways, speaking to _“god”_ with a bright shine in his eyes. On those days Garrett usually gives him a few hours to try to come back to his usual deranged state of mind. More often than not he ends up having to play a song on the piano, the sound of music and his singing tends to be enough to draw the other man out of his own head.

And with the good days and the bad days there are terrible days, though these are few and far between. On the terrible days Garrett is as silent as a church mouse and doesn’t bother Joseph. It always briefly reminds him of his childhood, having to stay silent and walking on eggshells when silence wasn’t an option, though this time around he has no fear of bodily harm; he can defend himself and Joseph usually isolates himself during these episodes anyway.

Garrett is good at gauging what kind of day it will be and plans accordingly.

He knows to be patient with those who are mentally ill, learned this as a child when he had to take care of his mom who had been sick like Joseph too. Ill, but not in the same ways; Garrett has no idea what it is Joseph has, whereas he’s pretty sure his mom had severe depression.

On the terrible days it’s a toss-up on whether music will help or not, so Garrett spends those days reading the instruction manuals on how to maintain and repair the bunker and its machinery that Dutch left behind.

(Apparently his friend had thought out at least ten different possible outcomes, one of them being Garrett ending up in the bunker by himself. Dutch seemed to be at least ten steps ahead of other doomsday preppers; he’d even set up a greenhouse in the lower levels of the bunker. Unfortunately his friend hadn’t accounted for the wild card that is Joseph Seed.)

The bad days and terrible days always end the same way; Joseph comes and finds Garrett and wraps himself around him, as if he’s trying to reassure himself that Garrett is there and real and not hanging from that noose.

\---

Garrett falls in love with the sound of a piano before he ever learns to play the one in The Spread Eagle.

It started with a radio.

An old, beat up FM-AM radio he had found one day when he was going through the old junk shed behind the family farmhouse. 

Holding the radio firmly, he sneaks back into the house and up the stairs past his dad who had drunk himself to sleep on the couch again, the faint stench of beer hanging in the air, and carefully eases open the door to his parents’ room, where he knows his mom will be.

The thing about Garrett’s mom was that she was ill, both physically and mentally. He always knew about the depression, but he never knew what caused her to be bed bound almost constantly and he never found out even after she died either.

She lay in bed looking out the window when he eased himself past the half open door (it squeaked when it opened all the way) and today must have been one of her good days because she smiled at him when he came to her side of the bed and held out the radio to her.

“Oh wow, look at that! I haven’t seen that old thing since you were born,” his mom says with a wistful smile as she takes it from his outstretched hand and fiddles with the dial. Nothing but static. “Hmm, seems like the radio station still has frequency troubles during the day.”

She turns it off and hands it back to Garrett with a conspiratorial smile on her face.

“You should go out to the barn tonight and tune it to 97.9 and see what comes up.”

Garrett nods and steps carefully, walking as close to the wall as possible to keep the floorboards from creaking and eases himself back out through the half open door.

That night he does as his mom suggested and sneaks out of the house and through the tall unkempt grass to the barn and climbs up into the rarely used hayloft. From here he can see the highway and the occasional headlights of people passing through.

He extends the little radio’s antenna and tunes in to 97.9. The radio DJ makes a few jokes and talks about some upcoming events before announcing the next song.

“It’s 70’s hour tonight, so here’s [Tiny Dancer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OGXKYEK4Bs) by [Elton John](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYcyacLRPNs).”

When Garrett hears the opening notes it’s like a whole new world opens up to him and it leaves him breathless.

He counts the headlights on the highway as he listens to the song.

\---

One day Garrett finally makes use of the record player.

A bittersweet smile finds its way onto his face when he finds an Elton John record in the collection Dutch had gathered.

Mad Man Across the Water.

(He feels like the album name is the start of a bad joke, about how all this started, but refrains from saying anything.)

He puts the needle on the record and the song that had given him hope as a child plays.

His eyes fall close and he sways a bit to the music before he takes Joseph’s hand and they start to dance. Neither of them is particularly good at it, but at least Garrett has a sense of rhythm, though that doesn’t really save them from stepping on each other’s toes.

Soon enough their dancing has devolved into trying to see who can step on the other’s toes more and they end up tripping and falling to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

Garrett’s laughing so hard he’s crying and _fuck_ he doesn’t remember the last time he’s laughed like this or felt happy enough _to_ laugh. And Joseph is smiling at him and it’s easy for Garrett to forget for a moment that this man has done terrible things, that they both have, that they’ve both torn away people they care about.

It’s easy to forget for a moment, so he does and kisses the other man.

\---

Garrett had never been all that gifted with working with machinery, one of the reasons why he went off to college instead of staying in Hope County and joining the trades or working on a farm, but he learns how to do basic repairs on the machines that keep the bunker running. Not that they need to be fixed all the time; Dutch knew his shit when he put them all together.

What surprises him most is that Joseph apparently has a knack for working with the machines, so he tackles the more complicated repairs when they arise and when they don’t Joseph either tears apart Dutch’s half-finished projects and starts from scratch or finishes what’s already there, and there’s a lot. (At the very least it keeps his hands and mind occupied so he’s not always talking about god and his incoherent logic about Eden and paradise.)

It makes Garrett wonder what the other man did before he started his cult.

He wants to ask, but it feels weird to bring up Joseph’s life before he went completely off the deep end.

Garrett thinks that maybe the Seed siblings might’ve always been sick, one way or another, but that they probably held themselves together the best they could until some huge event in life had finally pushed them over the edge and they all fell and dragged each other further and further down that slippery slope.

They all probably would’ve benefited from talking to a therapist or something (though he’s pretty sure Joseph would’ve just talked his way out of going); they all could’ve used some sort of help.

Of course he knows that doesn’t excuse all the things they did, and they did a _lot_ of fucked up things.

Garrett just wonders sometimes if things would’ve ended up differently if the Seed siblings had gotten the professional help they all had clearly needed, or maybe everything would have happened the same exact way anyway.

He doesn’t dwell on those thoughts for long. It wouldn’t do him any good to do so.

\---

They lay in their bed, the sheets lightly soaked with sweat, and the lights are off for the night.

Garrett lies awake staring at the ceiling and absently running his fingers through Joseph’s hair as the other man sleeps on top of him, slightly crushing him with his weight, though Garrett minded it less and less and instead found it reassuring; it meant that he wasn’t alone down here in the bunker at the end of all things, even if it was with someone he had hated with his entire being at first.

He still hates the other man, a part of him probably always will, but it’s less than it used to be.

He supposes he’s… _fond_ of Joseph, despite the fact that part of the time he wishes he would just stop talking about “god” and the evils of government (Garrett knows it wasn't perfect) and the other nonsense he’s prone to spouting (the other part he doesn’t mind it, doesn’t pay it much attention; Garrett’s never been much of a talker so he lets Joseph ramble).

It’s the only word he’ll allow himself to use. Refuses to call it love because that would feel too much like a betrayal to the Sheriff and Pratt and Hudson and to the Fairgrave family and everyone else from Hope County who fell to this man’s cruelty and charm.

If things had been different, if that damn cult had never been started, if Joseph hadn’t killed people Garrett cared about and if Garrett hadn’t done the same thing to him, if the world outside hadn’t been doused in flame and radiation, then Garrett might’ve been able to call this love.

But he can’t so he won’t.

Garrett takes a deep breath, releases it, and closes his eyes to try and sleep.

If only things had been different.

\---

Joseph doesn’t see Garrett – the young musician from the bar – again until 2011 rolls around.

He and his brothers don’t go to The Spread Eagle looking for converts too often anymore. They’ve bought up more land and liberated property from non-believers too prideful to submit and accept God’s word of the impending Collapse.

He hasn’t stopped thinking about that beautiful voice or those captivating green eyes and it makes the scars on his skin that spell out Greed and Lust burn. Tending to his flock and preparing them for the Collapse can usually distract him from thoughts of the young man.

So he and his brothers lay in the groundwork for a few potential converts, and there’s a part of Joseph that hopes to see Garrett again.

It’s only when he goes up to the bar and orders a drink – a rare indulgence – that he knows that Garrett is here. He knows because the bartender – Fairgrave, if he recalls – turns off the radio behind him.

Joseph turns to look at the stage and there stands Garrett with a guitar instead of sitting at the piano and there are three others with instruments on stage with him, but Joseph pays them no mind, his attention fixed only on the young man.

“This one’s because Mary May won’t stop bugging me about it,” Garrett speaks into the microphone with a toothy grin and avoiding the swat directed at him from one of other people up there with him.

Garrett strums out the opening chords and rhythmically stomps his feet and the others on stage join in one by one.

As the [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvCBSSwgtg4) goes on the bar patrons join in with a chorus and the stomping rhythm which makes the wooden floor shake with the force of it.

The set this time lasts for this song only unlike last time and Joseph pushes himself off from where he’d been leaning against the bar, intent on catching Garrett this time, but is stopped by Fairgrave’s hand on his arm.

“Look mister,” the bartender starts, “I don’t care what you and that group of yours does on your land, but you leave that boy alone.”

Joseph looks to where Garrett and his friends are exiting the bar and the grip on his arm tightens, drawing his attention back to Fairgrave.

“I’ve been watching out for that kid since he was nine, so I want you to stay away from him. He don’t need that cult bullshit in his life.”

“Why Mr. Fairgrave, I’m wounded by your words,” Joseph tells him with a pleasant smile.


	3. you'll marry a music man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a short chapter i tried doing from joseph's perspective since this fic is mostly done in garrett's.
> 
> i still haven't seen much of the actual game and i've mostly read the wiki, so i dunno know how well i portrayed him.
> 
> feel free to ignore/skip this chapter lmao. like i said, it's short and you won't miss much if you don't read it.
> 
> next chapter will be back to garrett's perspective

Eyes as green as Envy.

That’s how Joseph recognizes him, when he enters the church that night with the Sheriff and the Marshal. He studies Garrett’s face as he continues his sermon to his flock; the young musician turned Deputy is older now but still young, jaw set and mouth a hard line.

The Marshal and Sheriff Whitehorse bicker quietly as the group of three makes their way up the aisle, but Garrett remains silent. 

Interesting.

The Marshal holds up an arrest warrant and the faithful rise up to his defense as Joseph speaks once more, directed to them, but his gaze locked onto Garrett’s.

When his flock becomes too rowdy, Whitehorse raising his voice, Joseph intervenes. 

He will not have blood spilled in the church, not when it would call down more locusts upon them.

His flock leaves at his urging, but his brothers and sister remain behind him as he steps forward, wrists held out for Garrett to make a choice.

“And hell followed with him.”

Joseph’s skin burns like a brand where Garrett takes hold of his wrists, closing the handcuffs tight around them.

He leans in close to Garrett and whispers to him.

“Sometimes the best thing to do… is to walk away.”

Whether the younger man had arrested him or not didn’t matter.

He would’ve kept him, one way or another.

\---

There were times before he became the Father to his faithful that he heard the Voice.

The first was when he had been a child and had endured a beating at the hands of his father. The Voice then had only been the faintest of whispers, but Joseph had known the whispers had not belonged to him.

The second time had been before he met his wife and he’d been mugged in an alley by three men. The Voice had been stronger then, but still too quiet for him to hear what it was trying to tell him.

The third had been in that hospital room, holding his little Faith, and the Voice came in loud and clear and told him what he needed to do, what had to be done. Sometimes, he wishes the Voice had asked something else of him, some other way to test his belief and trust, but he made his choice.

When he tells Garrett of this, the younger man locked in one of Jacob’s cages, he listened and remained silent.

Silent until Joseph had finished speaking.

“Child killer,” Garrett had called him.

\---

When he answered the dispatch in the wreckage of the helicopter, him and Garrett having a staring contest of sorts, he saw the moment of dawning realization change to unbridled rage like quicksilver.

Ah, so that’s the younger man’s sin; Wrath.

But, no… it’s not just that, there’s more than one sin housed in that soul. More that waits to be seen.

“No one is coming to save you,” Joseph whispers and the glare he receives would make weaker men quake with fear.

\---

“Do you truly not believe?” Joseph asked him one day, one of the times Garrett decided to join him for prayer.

He waits patiently for him to answer.

That was one thing he had learned about the other man; while he was quick to act, to make decisions, when it came to talking he did very little of it and always put thought into it.

“I believe that you believe it to be true,” Garrett finally tells him.

It’s as good an answer as he’ll get, he knows this.

Joseph may have forgiven Garrett, but he could see that there was still a lot of hate and anger in Garrett’s heart.

\---

When their final confrontation began, on the doorstep of the church, every fiber of his being was at war with itself; he wanted to see Garrett burn for what he did to Joseph’s family, for refusing salvation again and again, but he also wanted to keep him.

Garrett was a demon with the blood of others soaked into his bones.

Garrett was an angel with a voice that could make grown men weep.

And Joseph was blinded, again and again, by his hellfire and heavenly light.

So he offers him one last chance to save his friends, to cast aside his weapons.

When he does not put down his gun, Joseph realizes that Garrett’s sin is not just Wrath, but that it is also Pride, and they’re buried deep in Garrett’s soul.

\---

The bed creaks as they move in tandem, pressed in close to one another.

Joseph bends his head and sucks a kiss high on Garrett’s neck that makes the younger man moan and it’s music to his ears.

Garrett writhes in bliss beneath him, scoring marks down Joseph’s back with his nails.

Every sigh and gasp of Joseph’s name from Garrett’s mouth is like a benediction.

A union of two souls, two people joining in a holy communion.


	4. piano man, he makes his stand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [there's a playlist now my dudes](https://8tracks.com/edmunderson/turn-around-and-say-good-morning-to-the-night) (the odd numbered tracks are for joseph, even #'s for garrett)
> 
> i'll probably write some more stuff once i've actually had the chance to play the game and get a better grasp of it's story and characters

Junior Deputy Rook recognizes Joseph Seed by the man’s obnoxious piss-yellow sunglasses.

Most of the footage on the internet of Eden’s Gate is blurry, obscuring the cult leader’s face, save for those shades the man seems to be never without.

 _Who wears sunglasses indoors? At night?_ Garrett thinks to himself as he follows Sheriff Whitehorse and the Marshal – Burke? He knows the man introduced himself when he showed up, but Garrett’s been without sleep for 36 hours and he’s running solely on coffee fumes at this point – into the church.

Something about this doesn’t feel right, especially when the cult leader keeps looking at him.

It’s unsettling, but Garrett has spent his entire life keeping his face in check so as to not give himself and his emotions away, and he handcuffs Seed when he presents his wrists.

Ice grips his heart when the man suddenly leans in and whispers to him.

“Sometimes the best thing to do… is to walk away.”

\---

Garrett’s never been one for talking or interacting with others too much.

Billy and Mary May tease him and call him shy.

It’s not that he’s shy, Garrett’s just naturally a solitary person. William says he’s made of stone and iron, and that that’s not a bad thing so long as he remembers to reach out and need people every now and then.

“My serious little man,” his mom used to call him when he was younger. And he supposes he is serious. Garrett sees what needs to be done and does it, he sees no point in beating around the bush.

Which of course made his career choice seem odd to those who knew him well; law enforcement wasn’t always straightforward. A lot of the time it was beating around the bush, having to sit on one’s hands until given the ‘okay’ to act.

“I mean, you got the stone face thing going for ya, but you’re not really the _‘By the book’_ type,” Billy says one day as they’re walking down the dirt road towards Main Street. The summer heat’s coming on a few months too early; they’ll be graduating high school soon and then it’s off to college in Missoula for Garrett. Billy plans on working at his dad’s bar.

Garrett grunts in response as he squints up at the big Montana sky.

“Pop was surprised that you’re not pursuing music, piano man.”

That stops Garrett in his tracks, Billy stopping a little farther down the road when he realizes that Garrett stopped.

“He’s not… disappointed, is he?”

Billy rolls his eyes and grins at him.

“Pop? Disappointed in you? Buddy, he couldn’t be disappointed in you no matter how hard you tried. He just figured you’d go into the music business.”

\---

Garrett takes his time reading the books Dutch left for him down in the bunker.

While there’s a decent amount, there’s still only so many, and he doesn’t want to go through them too quickly.

It’s also the longest he’ll talk, reading aloud; Garrett reads too fast, Joseph reads to slow, so to stop them from constantly moving back and forth through the pages he just sucks it up and reads aloud.

His throat is sore the first few times, unused to speaking for long periods of time, but it doesn’t bother him too much. He just makes Joseph read when his throat gets too scratchy to continue.

\---

The realization that Deputy Nancy was part of Eden’s Gate had been a hard truth for Garrett to swallow.

It probably didn’t help that that little fact came to light immediately after the helicopter crashed.

He thinks maybe something in him broke, because he got angry – so _damn_ angry – and he stayed that way until he woke up in the bunker with only Joseph. Garrett was still angry, even after he woke up, but he could feel it start to clear from his mind like a fog dissipating in the morning light.

When his mind had mostly cleared, he'd been shocked looking back on his behavior during his time taking down Eden's Gate and the Peggies; he'd been afraid he was becoming a violent man like his dad.

\---

The night after he kills Faith Seed, Garrett has strange dreams.

He dreams of burning Bliss flowers and a hail of teeth raining down on Hope County.

He lurches upwards, tearing himself from the nightmare, and breathes heavily. Boomer crawls into his lap and paws at him, trying to calm Garrett down.

(At the time, Garrett took that dream to mean that if he didn’t stop Joseph Seed, more people would die.)

\---

“Do you truly not believe?” Joseph asks him one day, after he finishes praying.

Garrett thinks about it.

Does he believe the world will be better off “starting over?”

Not really, no.

Starting over this way doesn’t address the problems, doesn’t allow for solutions to be made to try to make things better; it’s just giving up and running away from the root of the problem.

It’s why he never bought into Eden’s Gate ideology no matter how hard the Seed family had tried.

Not only had Eden’s Gate been preying on the weak and desperate, but he found the whole “eagerly awaiting the world to blow itself up” attitude to be cowardice. It was taking the easy way out and still blaming others for not doing enough.

Garrett could say all of this, but he’s unsure if it would just cause a fight between them. 

Maybe he’ll try explaining in depth someday down the road, but for now he keeps his answer short and simple.

“I believe that you believe it to be true.”

\---

It’s barely a week after his college graduation, when he’s in the middle of packing up his tiny apartment to go back to Hope County, that he gets a call from Mary May.

Billy’s dead.

Garrett’s world stops turning.

Billy’s dead, and he’s not coming back.

“It was those damn cultists,” Mary May spits out over the phone line. Garrett’s trying to focus on what she’s saying, but _Billy’s dead_ is rattling around in his head too loudly. “I know it was that damn cult in the hill, but the cops won’t do shit.”

He knows about the cult in the hills of Hope County; not much, but he knows a bit. They showed up long after he had left for college. Eden something. Garrett remembers Billy mentioning them one of the few times he had made it back home for break. A bunch of gun nuts building bunkers, preparing for the end times.

"We- they- _fuck_ it was awful, Garrett, he looked _wrong._ A farmer found him on the side of the road this morning. Pop and I had to ID him and I just... I've never heard pop cry like that."

It’s a closed casket funeral.

He feels numb the entire time, like he’s walking through a bad dream and he’s waiting to wake up.

Three months later they’re burying Miranda Fairgrave and William is a broken man. His family is dropping like flies because of the cult and no one will tell Garrett _why._ What could the Fairgrave family possibly have done to draw the ire of madmen?

“He won’t tell me either,” Mary May admits after the service, when most of the mourners have left. “Just that the leader of the Peggies is angry with him.”

That just serves to make Garrett even more confused about this whole situation. He can’t imagine William making anyone that angry; can’t imagine the man making anyone angry at all.

Not even two months later and they’re at William Fairgrave’s funeral.

Mary May is the last Fairgrave and Garrett wishes that Eden’s Gate had chosen some other state to terrorize.

\---

It’s weird to know that he’s been getting more sleep now than he did before everything that happened.

There’s still many nights that he lies awake, unable to quiet his mind for a few hours.

Normally he’s fine with just lying there with Joseph draped over him or wrapped around him, but tonight… Tonight for some reason is different. Tonight he’s restless and he doesn’t know why.

Carefully, he slips out of Joseph's arms, replaces himself with his pillow, and leaves their room. Garrett still has the habit of walking as close to the wall as possible even though there aren't any creaky floorboards here.

Garrett doesn’t bother turning on any of the lights, just uses the wall as his guide.

At first he’s not sure where he’s going, only that he’s going somewhere, eventually finding himself outside of his music room.

Here he turns on the lights, keeping them dim, and heads straight for the bookcase. He pulls out the leather journal of people he doesn’t want to forget and once it’s in his hands, Garrett hesitates.

It feels wrong to take the journal out of this room, but he doesn’t want to linger here in the night. 

In the end, he decides to take the leather journal with him back to their room.

Flipping off the light, he makes his way back in the dark.

He barely turns the light on in their room, keeps it incredibly dim so it doesn’t wake up the other man, and then crawls back into bed with the journal.

Garrett reads it – all of it, front to back – even reads about the Seed siblings, reads what Joseph had added. It’s strange to see happier times for the Seed family written down in chicken scratch handwriting, even if happier times for them still weren’t all that happy.

Mostly though, Garrett reads what he himself wrote about the Fairgrave family.

About Billy who was his best friend and would forever be 24 years old, about Miranda who he never knew very well but knew she was loved by her children and husband, about Mary May who had been the rock of her family, and about William who had been a better father to him than his own dad had been.

Garrett falls asleep hours later, the journal splayed out over his chest.

\---

He finds Joseph in front of the church, back where all of this began. 

There are opened barrels of Bliss by the church doors and out comes Joseph, anger and bitterness and something else Garrett can’t quite place shining bright in his eyes.

The man tells him to take his friends and leave, that no harm will come to them, to leave like they should’ve on that night they arrived.

A part of Garrett knows he should, that that’s the best option; no more death, no more killing. A chance to root out cult members from the force. But there’s a bigger part of him, one that’s absolutely livid that this man has the _gall_ to blame everything on Garrett.

Garrett wasn’t the one to prey on the weak and desperate. Garrett wasn’t the one to steal land and people. Garrett wasn’t the one who tortured and drugged people.

Garrett didn’t start this, but he sure as hell was going to be the one to finish it.

\---

They lay in each other’s embrace, silent save for their soft breathing.

Fingers tracing nonsense patterns on warm skin, legs tangled together, an ear over a heartbeat.

In another life, things are different.

In another life, there never was a cult, a baby girl didn’t die in a hospital room, and the world didn’t end.

But that life is not this one.

So Garrett holds the other man tighter – is held tighter in return – and learns to make do with the hand they were all dealt and tries to be content with what he has.


End file.
